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The Riches of Open Source
Daniel Dvorkin writes "This BusinessWeek article argues convincingly that Linus Torvalds has more resources at his disposal than Bill Gates. Not only is it a nice overview of Why Open Source Really Matters pitched to a non-technical audience, but it makes a solid argument in favor of OSS in general and Linux in particular, from a solidly capitalist perspective."
But there is a huge difference.
Linus can ASK the world to do something, but if they don't like the way he's thinking, they won't do it. Linus controls the world as long as the world likes the orders. So in a sense he's just a way to focus the desires of the majority of developers.
Gates on the other hand can ORDER everyone in his employ to jump around and shout "I'm a little idiot!" and they'll have to do it wether they like it or not. Thats a huge difference. Gates has the world as his playground.
Google Toolbar is SPYWARE!
If this is true then one must wonder why Linus doesn't utilize more of these available resources. Why does he instead have a relatively small group of hackers working on only a kernel? Why, with all his resources, is he not developing, embracing and extending a plethora of other operating system components and applications?
The fact is that while open source does offer the potential of having a very vast number of developers owrking on a project or multiple projects, the reality is that few developers actually participate. Combine this with the fact that they are driven to participate based on their interest or itch and we end up with a fine kernel, a few great apps and an abundance of mp3 players.
The potential is there for Linus to have more resources than Bill Gates but, the reality is that Linus has no where near the resources of Bill Gates.
The altruism of open source is very noble. What will put the fire in the belly of Linux's white knights if they win their crusade and Microsoft does crumble?
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Do you honestly believe that? Look, I would LOVE to see MS adopt a more open model, but that is because I know how much it would benefit me, and the rest of the tech community, not because I believe for a minute that it would actually be better for Microsoft. Do you really think they would have 90% market share with open source products? Of course not. They got where they are by not sharing the pie with anyone. If they opened up, others would take what they have done and run with it. People would release 100% compatible versions of Windows, Office, IIS, etc that were more secure with less bug fixes, and Microsoft would have to work harder, spend more money in development and QA, and still end up with less of the market, thus less money. For that matter why would anyone buy XP if Windows NT 4 was still under active development by an open source community that made it just as modern and up to date? Would all this be good for the rest of the world? Yes. Would it make MS "loads more money"? Absolutely not.
SCO.com uses Linux
Good article overall, in fact pretty damn amazing coming from mainstream press. But I did notice one disturbing thing:
And while Torvalds and Linux have recently faced legal issues about whether Linux might have some proprietary code embedded in it, that distraction is dwarfed by the time and energy Gates has devoted to battling the U.S. Justice Dept.
Now, all of us here are aware that the 2 cases are pretty much polar opposites. The former is the little guy being picked on by a big, greedy coporation. The latter is the little guys (us, represented by the govenment) picking on the big, greedy coporation.
Most of the non-tech people I know are aware that MS's name had been dragged through the mud as a result of the DOJ case, and have a lot less respect for MS now that the law has found them guilty. Regardless of the merits of the case, or the result, the fact is the general public often thinks of MS as the bad guys simply because of a court decision.
I really, really hope this doesn't happen to Linux, but articles that even mention the 2 situations in the same paragraph (without explanation) blur the issue. How long until my Mom asks me about Linux, the "Operating System written by thieves"?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
That will be true when Bill is willing to GPL his software. Until then, Bill is relegated to software that is free (as in do whatever you want with it), as opposed to Free (as in RMS).
So I'd say that the bulk of what is referred to as Open Source is quite inaccessible to Bill. And as for benefits to Bill through competition, no way. Bill doesn't benefit by making windows better - he benefits by selling more copies of windows. If linux were not around, he could sell more copies of windows with less effort put into improvements.
I think Bill would be hard-pressed to find anything about the Open/Free/free software movement that he likes.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
If this is true, there may be many reasons, perhaps working in concert (different people may have different and multiple reasons, making the effect much stronger). For example, the fact that the developer can see the OS code may make him far more confident in working on code above it... because he can really understand what's going on underneath (and fix it if there's a problem). Having the entire OS's code means that he can experiment with anything... and even if today he doesn't want to experiment with something, using OSS/FS means that he'll be more prepared for that time when he does. From a security point-of-view, he can analyze and fix anything, and knowing that others can do that too might raise his confidence in the results. By improving OSS/FS, he gains respect in the technical community that he wouldn't get simply by writing closed code (even if they're both paid for, everyone can see EXACTLY what you did in the open code).
I'm sure there are others.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
If Linus Torvalds has more resources at his disposal than Bill Gates, then what when we add Richard Stallman, Larry Wall, Don Knuth, Damian Conway, Guido van Rossum, Norman Hardy, Bruce Schneier, Ian Murdock, Martin Michlmayr, Nicholas Weaver, Ken Thompson, Robert Thau, Theo de Raadt, Robert Malda, et cetera? Amazing. Truly amazing.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
and how much of his wealth did he give away before the anti-trust trials, which dragged him kicking and screaming into the public spotlight?
he's gotten WAY more visibly "generous" since recognizing how politically important it is to be viewed as a nice guy by the rabble. i still can't stomach that picture of gates personally administering polio vaccine to an african child, with that big, fake goony smile spread across is face for the cameras.
And, BTW, from where did that excess come?
exactly - from predatory business practices that crush competition and extort huge sums of money from businesses - large, medium, and small - across the globe.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
This is one of the most hilarious posts i've read for a while, but at the same time, it's very insightful! Think about how many of us freeloaders there are? I'm one of them. It's quite a challenge to turn freeloaders into programmers/donators/documenters/anything...
Berto